FIFA, also known as FIFA Football or FIFA Soccer, is a series of association football video games, released annually by Electronic Arts under the EA Sports label. While there was no major competition when EA released the first titles in their Madden NFL and NHL series, football video games such as Sensible Soccer, Kick Off and Match Day had been developed since the late 1980s and were already competitive in the games market when EA Sports announced a football game as the next addition to their EA Sports label.
When the series began in late 1993 it was notable for being the first to have an official licence from FIFA, the world governing body of football. The latest installments in the series contain many exclusively-licenced leagues including league and teams from around the world, including the English Premier League and Football League, Italian Serie A, Spanish La Liga, German Bundesliga, French Ligue 1, Dutch Eredivisie, Mexican Primera División, American Major League Soccer, South Korean K-League and Australian Hyundai A-League, allowing the use of real leagues, clubs, and player names and likenesses within the games.
The main series has been complemented by additional installments based on single major tournaments, such as the FIFA World Cup, UEFA European Football Championship, and UEFA Champions League, as well as a series of football management titles.
As of 2011, the FIFA franchise has been localized into 18 languages and available in 51 countries. The series has sold more than 100 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling video game franchises.[1] Also FIFA 11 holds the record for the "fastest selling sports game ever" with over 2.6 million games sold and over $150 million generated at retail in less than a week of the game being released
History
The key points of EA's early advertising programs were the isometric view of the pitch, an innovation when other games used either top down, side scrolling or bird's eye views, as well as detailed graphics and animations, and of course the FIFA endorsement. It was shipped for Christmas 1993, named FIFA International Soccer, and was released for most of the popular console and computer platforms of the time.
While FIFA 95 did not add much other than the ability to play with club teams, FIFA 96 pushed the boundaries. For the first time with real player names by obtaining the FIFPro license, the PlayStation, PC, 32X and Sega Saturn versions used EA's "Virtual Stadium" engine, with 2D sprite players moving around a real-time 3D stadium. FIFA 97 improved on this with polygonal models for players and added an indoor soccer mode, but an early pinnacle was reached with FIFA: Road to World Cup 98. This version featured much improved graphics, a complete World Cup with qualifying rounds (including all national teams) and refined gameplay. Months later, World Cup 98, EA's first officially-licensed tournament game, gave each team a unique kit and broke a sequence of poor tournament-based video games started by U.S. Gold's World Cup Carnival in 1986 and continued until Gremlin Interactive's Euro 96.
FIFA games have been met with some criticism, such as for the minimal improvements each title features over its predecessor. As the console market expanded, FIFA was challenged directly by other titles such as Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer (known as Winning Eleven in Japan and the US). Both FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer have a large following but FIFA sales could rise as much as 30 percent year-over-year in Europe, making FIFA the most profitable EA Sports title, thanks to its global audience and lower license costs compared to Madden
Recommended System Requirements
System: Pentium-200MMX or equivalent
RAM: 32 MB
Video Memory: 8 MB
Hard Drive Space: 150 MB
